Rich recounted for me the long journey his Android vision has taken, starting when he was at Orange, when he envisioned a standard mobile platform across mobile operators to which developers could write. At Orange, along with T-Mobile and Vodafone, he pushed the SavaJe platform as a potential solution, but that platform struggled to fight through the long path to realization. After launching the startup company called Android, he and his co-founders considered venture funding, but realized that it would really take a company like Google, with deep enough pockets and enough patience to take the long view towards profitability, for the vision to become an impactful reality.

Congratulations Rich and team on these major milestones towards that reality!

(Here were my thoughts on the announcement of the Open Handset Alliance and Android just over a year ago.)